ARCHITECTURAL CONSIDERATIONS

IN REAL ESTATE

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There are so many things that people take for granted with regard to the architectural considerations that affect the real estate we live in, work out of, sell or lease. This section of the course will consider the architectural ramifications and considerations that make up the real estate we deal with every day. As appropriate, we will reference historical trends and modern day modifications - as well as explore future trends and changes.

A building has to physically stand. We often take for granted the fact that buildings do not fall down. We hardly wonder why they don't. The structural needs of the building typically have a vital hand in shaping it's ultimate form.

Intuition was a major factor in the success of early builders, but alone cannot and has not guided man to become aware of the structural & architectural demands on today's real estate industry. Certainly, our intuition is fallible.

This kind of intuition, and experience, often from hard trial and error, must have schooled

the early builders. They did not perform special calculations (as we do in the modern day) yet their skilled traditions grew. Our ancestor master builders were delicately balancing the outward thrust of cathedral arches with the counter-thrust of external buttresses, long before the beginnings of modern theory when men like Galileo in the seventeenth century came to wonder about the mathematics of bending, and Sir Isaac Newton about the action and reaction of forces.

Calculations have become a modern day practice in assisting engineers to determine the stress calculations and to be able to check whether their assumptions about the likely behavior of their structural proposals are correct or need adjustments.

The intuitive, or empirical, can be mathematically verified. In this respect, the early builders were blindfold and, despite their achievements, they sometimes did get it wrong - in

quantity, if not in concept. There are numerous historical accounts of architectural "disasters" attributable to a lack of professional schooling in the field including: the Beauvais cathedral where the roof fell twice and it's tower once. Winchester collapsed. Wells, propped too much by the stone buttresses outside, had to be counter-propped by the buttresses inside.

Many architectural mishaps were due to men who were uncertain of the stresses their structure had to take and unfortunately dared too much. The common rule known as PPI (put plenty in) - to at least play it safe. There was no shortage of labor or materials - so why not.

In the late 1800's, it took a whole series of collapses- about 25 bridges a year in America- before commonsense rules-of-thumb simply had to be backed up by calculations.

More specifically, there is the need to minimize self-weight. Just 'putting plenty in' is hopeless in terms of structural economy. Having the structural parts bigger, than they need to be wastes material and demands that the structure be even bigger, to carry its own weight- a vicious circle that is ever more critical as scale increases.

For instance, if you spanned a wooden meter rule across a gap it would be stiff and could carry a load much greater than its own weight. But if you increased all the dimensions a hundred times, thus creating a plank spanning 100m, the plank would sag and break under its weight alone. This is called scale effect.

Suppose a 1 centimeter cube is increased in size to a 2 centimeters cube, and then to 3 centimeters. The area of a cross-sectional slice goes up in the ratio 1:4:9, but the volume goes up in ratio 1:8:27. Volume increases faster than cross-section, so to speak. As we increase the plank size, the volume and, hence, weight, soon outstrip the ability of the cross-sectional area.

In general - weight overtakes strength. In nature, it is the reason why spiders have thin legs and elephants have fat ones. In building structure, it is the reason why a room can be economically spanned by a wooden joist, while a factory roof's-span needs, an open-web truss, and a long river span, the ultimate efficiency of a lightweight suspension bridge.

But stress calculations do not define the shape of a structure, they simply allow an exactness of sizing so that available strength is tailored to the loads with maximum economy (always allowing a known margin of safety).

When man learned to build-up stones for his family's shelter, he started to play the compression game. Stone is strong under compression but pulls apart fairly easily under tension and, moreover, stones in a wall lock together under compression but under tension can pull apart at the joints. The need to keep stones or bricks, or other blocks, under compression has influenced the shape of every masonry building ever built.

Consider just one stone at the base of a wall. It must carry its share of the weight of the stones above- the wall's dead load- and so must 'press up' as much as that weight is pressing down. If it is pressed too little, the wall would squash & collapse, if it is pressed too much, the stones above would presumably fall away.

But it presses just the right amount and the system is stable. And, if someone happened to sit on the wall, a minute part of their added liveload must reach the stone and the stone obliges by pushing up that fraction more. The system is still stable. So how does the stone and the earth below it always know how much to push up? The answer (which was only discovered in the middle of the last century) lies at the microscopic scale of the atom and sheds light on the whole nature of structural strength.

FOR YOUR INFORMATION: Live loads are those imposed on the building by its particular use and occupancy, and are generally considered movable or temporary (such as people, furniture, movable equipment and snow.

DID YOU KNOW... The amount of stress a wood member can withstand is dependent on the time during which the load producing the stress acts. Allowable design loads are based on what is called normal duration of load which is assumed to be ten years. For duration of loads shorter than this (based on the Uniform Building Code for wood construction), the allowable stress may be increased according to the following percentages: 100% for impact loads, 33.3% for wind or earthquake loads, 25% for seven days of duration (as for roof loads) and 15% for 2 months duration (as for snow).

The component molecules of every substance are connected by forces which can be regarded as magnetic springs. It is these springs which compress or extend when a material is squeezed or stretched- a tiny deformation often, but it is there, for nothing is ever truly rigid.

Even a marble slab is like a very stiff internally-sprung mattress and will compress locally as an insect walks over it, as will the insect's feet. The world is a springy place. So, in fact, structure -materials- do not actively 'push back', but they deflect and, in doing so, find their passive reaction to loads placed upon them.

You could see the deflection of a tree branch when you swing on it or the flapping of a plane's wings when it hits some air turbulence, and you can just about feel the sway in some tall steel-frame buildings when the wind blows strongly.

Wood and steel are relatively elastic. You will not notice the sag in a stone-arch bridge when a car crosses it, nor the compression in the wall stone, but they are there.

However, just because one material gives more (is more elastic than another), it is not necessarily weaker. A brittle dry twig will snap under load long before a green springy one, although the green one may, at first, have seemed the weaker. So stiffness is not the same as strength, although both qualities are needed in the materials we use for building.

If the load on a stone is two tons, the stone must react with two tons force, but without knowing the bearing area of the stone, we cannot tell how hard the material is having to work. Instead, we must think in terms of stress. If the stone's bearing area is 1000 square cm, then the compressive stress in the material is 2 tons force per 1000 cm2-i.e. 2kg/cm2. The units really do not matter. The point is made clear.

Strain is the linear distortion in response to stress. Nails are pointed so that the impact load of the hammer is concentrated on a tiny area of the material pierced- maximum stress and strain to yield point, for minimum load. Obviously, the same load that produces a high stress in a thick one. Foundations are made wider than walls to reduce compressive stresses to a level that weaker subsoils can bear.

In contrast to the nail, the foundation spreads the load, preventing the wall from punching through the ground, which would cause settlement and an eventual building collapse.

It may, at first, be hard to see how compressive stress could ever crush stone, instead of just compressing the atoms more tightly together. In fact, what happens at the point of failure is that the stone squashes out sideways, rather as clay will under the weight of a worker's hand, except that stone, being more brittle than clay, fails by cracking or even a virtually explosive release.

The compressed material is actually failing by tensions induced within it. There is a slipping of adjacent molecular layers, and this we call shear.

On a larger scale, a wall can be fail at the joints if the stones roll off one another, sliding into a large heap, as a pile of cannon balls would. This is an extreme way of illustrating that a wall made of irregular boulders is weaker than one built with accurately cut rectangular blocks.

A masonry wall is also stronger if the horizontal courses of stones or bricks are staggered, so that the vertical joints are not continuous. If they were continuous, the wall would act like a series of adjacent, vertical piers, rather than as a cohesive unit . The interlocking bond has the further merit of dispersing point loads evenly.

People who are more familiar with structures & building may be getting worried by our focus on direct compressive stress, knowing that masonry walls are usually too strong to fail by compression concerns alone. In reality, the ultimate danger is instability, overturning and buckling. The higher and thinner the wall, the greater the danger becomes.

Let's suppose you were to lean on a flexible cane . As long as the cane remains absolutely straight, it can support you but, as soon as the slightest bending occurs, things become suddenly worse and that's where your stability would end.

If only you could be sure of keeping the direction line of your weight acting exactly through the center of the cane down to the ground, you would be all right but, invariably, some slight twist of your hand on the handle, or some irregularity in the cane, will get the buckle started. This situation is known as being dynamically unstable.

So, either the wall can get out of line with its load or the load can get out of line with the wall. Take the first case. A vertically loaded wall is all nicely in compression- the stress distribution is effectively an even band straight across its base. Suppose the foundation is on poor subsoil and the wall starts to tilt. The load line acting vertically down from the center of gravity - the center of mass- of the wall moves towards the outward tilting face.

The stress distribution alters until either the over stressed edge crumbles, making a bad situation worse, or the load-line passes outside the wall causing, the face on the other side to go into tension, so that the joints open and the wall buckles and fails.

The second case, where the loads get out of the vertical, happens quite frequently.

Horizontal wind forces or secondary, sideways, thrusts from roofs and floors are threats, again tending to tilt the main load-line. In other words, as far as the wall is concerned, the component forces on it (its own vertical loading and any secondary, sideways, loading) have the combined effect of a single force, the resultant.

The stronger the wind, the more the resultant tilts away from the vertical: the heavier the brick, the less it tilts. As long as the resultant falls within the bearing area (the base), the brick will stand. It would take a gale force wind to blow over a heavy brick, but cardboard the same size with its low weight component would blow over in a breeze. The double benefit of having a thick, low wall is, therefore, that the thickness adds weight, keeping the resultant near the vertical, and that the geometry is such that the resultant has further to tilt, in any case, before it falls outside the wall width.

Thus a tower wall is stepped, not only to increase the bearing area to match the downward increasing loading but, more important, to tailor the wall face to contain any load-line tilting. Our forefather builders may not have known all this, but their craft and native wit must have told them that, if they built this way, their walls would stand.

Further, the fact that the walls tend to act in concert and not in isolation, adds to the overall stability. Just like when a book is stood on it's end (is more stable open than closed), so a building is stabilized by the right-angled 'cellular' interconnection of its walls.

Any wall of the tower will be helped in resisting wind load or other forces by the side walls flanking it. The flanking walls restrain the first wall, giving it a greater effective thickness.

THE COLUMN

Given that any self-respecting wall has strength and to spare to resist downward loading, it can easily cope with reductions in its bearing area caused by door and window openings. The openings are simply topped with lintels, short beams, and the loads shred round them and down to the ground. Logically, we can continue this opening-up process until the loads are concentrated into a row of separate supports, so that solid construction gives way to the skeleton or trabeated construction of column and beam.

Columns cannot be built as high as walls of the same thickness owing to the greater internal stresses and because buckling coming from any direction becomes that much more of a problem. But they bring interesting new possibilities to the compression game, allowing larger open spaces inside a building (uninterrupted by intermediate support walls) and on the facade, allowing a lighter facade of recurring columns and load-free, open bays.

BEAM THEORY

If we stand on a beam, we can cause it to bend and, remembering that the beam, like everything else, is just one vast molecular grid, it follows that the grid is being distorted against its will. In fact, it distorts until the beam's internal protesting forces balance our external load. The beam deflects in order to support and the way it diverts the load sideways- in this case to the supports- is what beam theory is all about.

The externally applied bending moment

We can, similarly, bend the beam clamping the middle and pulling up on the end. If we could pull hard enough, it would break, the break occurring at the vice and not near our hands. It is a matter of leverage, the principle of the crow-bar. The bending severity at any point in a beam is called the bending moment and is proportional to the externally applied loads and their leverage.

For example, in the clamped beam, the maximum bending moment occurs at the vice, being equivalent to our upward pull multiplied by the whole lever arm length of the beam. Moving away from the vice, the bending moment reduces as the lever arm reduces, a state of affairs represented graphically in the bending moment.

The beam works hardest at the vice and least hard at the end. It follows that the bending moment pattern for the original center-loaded beam is minimal at the supports and at its maximum in the center.

If the load were too heavy or the span too long, the beam would eventually break, probably at the center. Increasing load, or span, increases the maximum center bending moment that the beam has to resist. Incidentally, if the beam is uniformly loaded along its length instead of point-loaded at its center, the bending moment pattern becomes the gradual curve.

The distinction between stiffness and strength again

People understandably think of certain things as being strong enough not to break. But, in fact, when architects or engineers are sizing things in relatively elastic materials like timber, steel or even reinforced concrete, they are usually far more concerned with limiting the deflections. For example, a timber -joist floor strong enough to support its loads perfectly safely would still be insufficiently stiff if it sagged so much that the plaster ceiling underneath it cracked and fell.

Steel-frame buildings must only deflect a limited amount if they are to be regarded as stable. A steel bridge must not sway unduly in wind. It is perfectly all right to talk about strength as long as we remember that, in design, stiffness and not ultimate breaking strength is the main concern.

MODERN ARCHITECTURAL CONSIDERATIONS

Traffic Flow

The traffic flow of a home considers entrances from the front, behind, between the front and back and into and out of the house. As a person drives up to the house, typically a driveway is considered and the needs to enter from that area - a possible path way to the front entrance, entrance to the garage or carport area and then access to the kitchen from the garage.

The main entrance of the home is typically at the front and visible. Most homes lead into a entry hall or directly into a living room area. A back door, usually near the kitchen, takes you into the back yard.

The interior traffic flow is set to provide easy movement and also privacy. Most residential traffic patterns enter into a "busy" area like a living room and lead either to a dining area or kitchen (keeping bedrooms isolated and private).

The inside of the home can be thought of as being FOUR kinds of areas: eating, entertaining, private and utility. Preferably, each should be separate from the others - but without causing undue problems with getting from one to another.

An open floor plan makes the house seem more spacious, but sacrifices privacy to do it. In this kind of design, there is basically one large central room with all others off of it, and a few (or no) hallways. Traffic flow is no problem, except for how the furniture might be arranged.

Bathrooms and bedrooms are the private areas of the home. A guest bathroom located near the living room or dining room can help to keep guests from having to intrude on those private areas. If placed near an outside door, this makes an excellent place for children to get cleaned up before coming into the house.

Most architects consider hallways to be a waste of space. They provide a path to get from one place to another but are pretty much useless for anything else. The key in home design is to eliminate hallways where possible and to reduce them when hallways are needed.

A common mistake in home design is to design a hallway that is too narrow. Moving through the hall then becomes difficult. This is often exemplified when trying to move bed furniture around corners into bedrooms. Many builders note that the minimum width for a hall be 30 inches - however, 36 inches will work much better if you can make the room in your plans.

The kitchen triangle considers the traffic flow in the kitchen. There are a number of standard designs used in the contemporary and traditional kitchen. Behind them all is the "work triangle concept". The three major sections of the kitchen are the refrigerator, sink and stove. Movement between the three should be minimal with plenty of counter space between each.

Most architects find that the "U-shaped" kitchen is ideal for this. The sink is placed on one wall (usually beneath a window) and the refrigerator and stove are against opposite walls at right angles to the sink.

The "L-shaped" kitchen lacks one of these three walls. In this case, two of the three items are on one wall, with the other on the second wall. The third choice is a parallel kitchen. This is a kitchen that is basically open on both ends, with two counters opposite each other. Again, two of the areas are against one wall with the third opposite.

The least efficient design is when there is only one wall - or only enough width to put the three items against one wall. However the kitchen is designed, movement from the kitchen must be carefully planned. To maximize efficiency, the distance between the stove and the refrigerator should be between 4 and 9 feet; between the sink and the stove, 4 to 6 feet; and between the refrigerator and the sink, 4 to 7 feet. The perimeter of the work triangle should be no less than 12 feet and no more than 22 feet with 15 - 20 feet considered ideal.

The traffic pattern of the stairs should take into consideration a sufficient amount of space (height) so no one has to duck while going up or down the stair way. There are typically two decisions when it comes to stairs: hide them or expose them.

An exposed stairway can be dramatic and add to the appearance of the home; however it is not as safe as a hidden stairway (because of the lack of doors) and is always more expensive - due to additional ornamentation costs.

Another consideration is whether the stairway will be straight, have one landing, one or two turns, etc. Seven feet is a preferred height (with 6 feet being an absolute minimum). Most stairs use treads of about 10 inches in width, usually constructed of 2 by 10 planks. The riser is generally somewhere between seven and eight inches (with 7 � inches usually considered standard).

House Shape & Room Location - Sun Advantages

Most homes are square or rectangular. The reason is that this is the least expensive and generally most efficient shape for a home. Every corner and curve added also adds significantly to the overall cost. Numerous structural and design problems can accompany these kinds of modifications as well.

A builder's goal is to strike a balance - blend the home aesthetically with the land and its features, and have a shape that is pleasing to the client (while staying within a budget). The lay of the land also affects cost - for example, if the land slopes, a split level home is often less expensive than excavating the land to home a ranch-style dwelling having the same square footage.

Location of Rooms

In northern climates, the home should have a southern exposure - this means that important rooms in the house should be located on the southern side where they'll get maximum sunlight. Often, larger windows are located on this side for the same reason. Other reasons include: it adds to the homes appeal (the house is more pleasant) and owners typically report lower utility bills.

In southern climates, the opposite is true. The goal in the south is to keep the hot sun out. The sun's heat will put a major drain on your air conditioning, and bleach your carpets and draperies.

The kitchen is most often placed in the back of the house. The next most common area is to be in the front of the home. Regardless of which side of the house the kitchen is located - it's typically at one end or the other (often near the garage entrance for ease in bringing in the groceries).

In general, a home with a fewer number of bathrooms will find the most functional floor plan if they are centrally located (more or less). A full bath indicates three items: a sink, toilet and a shower or tub (or a combination). A half-bath has a sink and toilet only. The term 3/4 bath is no longer generally recognized (but did at one time refer to a bathroom having only a shower, sink and toilet).

Fireproofing Considerations

One of the primary purposes of any building code is to ensure that buildings are adequatelly protected from fire and that if a fire does occur, structural members are sufficiently protected.

Although steel is noncombustible, it loses strength at high temperatures and must be protected with approved insulating materials, such as sprayed-on fireproofing or gypsum wallboard. The exception to this is for roof framing, other than the structural frame, which is more than 25 feet above the floor. This framing may be of unprotected noncombustible materials.

Since wood framing is, of course, combustible - protective measures must be taken in order to utilize it in modern day construction. A unique property of wood is that while it is combustible, thick pieces of wood exposed to fire will char but not immediately loose structural integrity.

The Building Code recognizes this by having a separate type of construction, Type-IV, for heavy timber construction. In this type of construction, columns must be at least 8 inches in any dimension, beams and girders must be at least 6 inches wide and 10 inches deep (floor decking must be at least three inches thick).

Wood Construction Considerations

Structural lumber is typically referred to by its nominal dimension in inches such as 2 x 4, or

2 x 10. However, after surfacing at the mill and drying takes place, its actual dimension is somewhat less.

Since a log yields lumber of varying quality, the individual sawn pieces must be categorized to allow for selection of the quality that best suits the purpose. For structural lumber, the primary concern is the amount of stress that a particular grade of lumber of a species will carry.

The load-carrying ability is affected by such things as size and number of knots, splits and other defects, as well as the direction of grain and the specific gravity of the wood.

Grading of structural lumber is done under standard rules established by several different agencies. The grading is done at the sawmill either by visual inspection or by machine.

Visually graded lumber is divided into categories based on nominal size, so the same grade of lumber in a species may have different allowable stresses depending on which category it is in.

There are also categories for beams and stringers, and post and timbers. Beams and stringers are defined as members 5 inches and wider, having a depth of more than 2 inches greater than the width.

Posts and timbers are defined as members 5 inches by 5 inches (and larger) with a depth of not more than 2 inches greater than the width.

Machine-stress-rated lumber is based on grade designations which depend on the allowable bending stress and modulus of elasticity of the wood.

With regard to design values, for visually graded lumber, it depends on the species of the wood, the size category, the grade and the direction of loading. Different values are required based on the direction of loading because wood has different strengths depending on how loads are applied.

One additional variable for selecting the extreme fiber in bending stress is whether or not the member is being used alone or with other members such as a row of joists. The design values for repetitive member use is slightly higher than those for single member use. In order to qualify for repetitive member use, there must be at least three members spaced not more than 24 inches apart, and there must be some method to distribute the load among them such as bridging or sheathing.

Moisture Content

A woods moisture content is defined as the weight of water in wood as a fraction of the weight of oven dry wood. Moisture content is important to understand because it affects the amount of shrinkage, strength, weight and withdrawal resistance of nails used.

Moisture exists in wood both in the individual cell cavities and bound chemically within cell walls. When the cell walls are completely saturated, but no water exists in the cell cavities, the wood is said to have reached its fiber saturation point. This point averages about 30% moisture content in all woods. Above this point, the wood is dimensionally stable, but as the wood dries below this point it begins to shrink.

When wood is used for structural framing and other construction purposes, it tends to absorb or lose moisture in response to the temperature and humidity of the surrounding air.

As it loses moisture it shrinks, and as it gains moisture it swells. Ideally, the moisture content of wood when it is installed should be the same as the prevailing humidity to which it will be exposed. However, this is seldom possible, so lumber needs to be dried - either air dried or kiln dried - to reduce the moisture content to acceptable levels.

To be considered dry, lumber moisture content cannot exceed 19 percent. To be grade marked kiln dry, the maximum moisture content permitted is 15 percent. Design values found in recognized tables assume that the maximum moisture content will not exceed 19 percent. If it does, the allowable stresses must be decreased slightly.

Wood shrinks most in the direction perpendicular to the grain and very little parallel to the grain. Perpendicular to the grain wood shrinks most in the direction of the annual growth rings [tangentially] and about half as much across the rings radically.

Steel Construction Considerations

Steel is one of the most widely used structural materials because of its many advantages, which include: strength, ductility, uniformity of manufacture, availability of a wide variety of shapes & sizes, and ease and speed of erection.

Steel has a high strength-to-weight ratio. This makes it possible to reduce a buildings dead load and to minimize the space taken up by structural elements. In addition, steel has a high modulus of elasticity (it is very stiff).

Ductility of steel is a property that allows it to withstand excessive deformations due to high tensile stresses without failure. This characteristic makes steel an ideal construction material in earthquake prone areas.

Some of steels negative properties include: it's reduction in strength when exposed to fire and the tendency to corrode in the presence of moisture. Although steel does not burn, it does deform in the presence of high temperatures. With regard to it's corrosion potential, the inclusion of alloys in the steel (like stainless steel to be added during the manufacturing process), will help to minimize corrosion. Other common protective measures include: covering it with paint or other protective coatings.

ARCHITECTURAL CHARACTER

Today, buildings of architectural and historical relevance are often protected again demolition and alterations (that could effectively change original architectural details) and the like.

What is designated or listed as a landmark may vary from area to area but it can be groups of buildings, such as a row of brownstones in New York City or row style homes found in the Allentown area of Buffalo, NY.

It is not just the consideration as to whether something is listed on a register or not - don't assume that a home built in the 1950's is devoid of architectural merit.

The exterior of a building will carry some of the basic clues for assessing its age. Various details - such as the shape of doors and windows, belong to a particular architectural period. Always look behind the facade: sometimes only a front elevation was altered to give the home a more modern feeling. You may have to look at the back of the house to find the true date of construction.

The older the building, the more likely that it has been altered - in some cases, many times. Obviously, some of these renovations will have improved the original and there will be no question of changing them back; others might just have to be lived with.

Most people who chose an older home find it sensible to emphasize its features rather than to disguise them. It is often recommended to use traditional materials and keep the intrinsic qualities of the building.

The Exterior

Textures and surfaces of the walls, the way windows and doors are placed and proportioned, the shape of the roof line and chimneys, the detailing and condition of any ornamentation, all affect the way people see a building. Many otherwise beautiful homeshave been ruined because their wooded sash-window frames have been changed to aluminum ones, or the early 1900's leaded pane windows have been replaced with a modern "picture" window.

Even if the original glass and glazing bars are gone, the proportions, dimensions and positions of the windows are still characteristic of whatever period house you are looking at. The Colonial sash, the Regency bay or the Arts and Craft oriel window, the cast-iron patterning of Gothic Revival windows, and the more recent stained-glass windows within leading are all precious survivals.

Always consider repair before replacement to maintain the architectural integrity of the building.

Important too are the texture and pattern of exterior walls. Brick, stone and wood are the most commonly used materials. They were either left in their original state or painted, plastsered, clad with timber boarding or hanging tiles or slates - as an "improvement" or as part of the original building design. Be aware of "protective" surfaces which can often ruin not only the look, but more importantly, the structure of the building (by interfering with natural qualities - such as the porosity of the materials used).

During a restoration, the exterior details can make or break the entire project. The building won't look right if the ornamentation is missing, if the originals have been replaced at any stage or if styles have been mixed.

Details which people often disregard during "remodeling jobs" are the characteristic ornamental stucco work of the late eighteenth century and forward. This would include such items as: brackets, parapets and cornices. Approaching the nineteen-century, the terracotta decorations, which sometimes resembled panels of sunflowers or resettes set into a porch or over lintels.

If there is any of the original ornamentation on the building, it should be kept.

The Interior

The important thing is to keep the building's rhythm, rather than imposing on its essential character. Attention to detail makes all the difference in sustaining the sense of period when evaluating a home.

Staircases are the first thing you generally see when you walk in. Their shape and details - the balusters, newel posts, as well as the shape of the treads themselves are very characteristic of the period of your house. Whether you expose the paint or paint the handrail, carpet the treads of just use a runner will have great bearing on the overall feel of the house.

Much too often, floors are given little attention to detail. Considering that wall-to-wall carpeting did not become in vogue until the mid-nineteenth century; before then rugs were used over boards, while stone or slate, used in great slabs, often floored halls and the areas most used around the house.

Think carefully before your coat a stone or slate floor with any kind of protective surface; it might be impossible to remove; except by a destructive process of chipping it off.

Cornices, the carved or molded plaster band hiding and strengthening the junction between walls and ceiling, and the ceiling roses [originally meant for gaslight fittings] vary from the very simple to the florid.

When replacing a fireplace, which often acts as a focal point, take into account the proportions of the room, its period and make sure of getting a grate of appropriate style.

It is worth investigating these finer points; inevitably, if there is only one detail in a room that is wrong, everyone will notice it.

READ THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE AND SUMMARIZE IN YOUR OWN WORDS, SOME OF THE ARCHITECTURAL CONSIDERATIONS WHICH AFFECT THE EARTH HOME DISCUSSED IN YOUR READING. YOUR SUMMARY SHOULD BE AT LEAST 50 WORDS IN LENGTH.

PLEASE PUT YOUR ANSWER IN THE "RESPONSE" LINK THAT FOLLOWS BELOW.

Despite the violence of its sun and the stark profile of its mountains, the Sonoran desert around Tucson is, like most deserts, visually fragile - easily thrown into imbalance by a jarring building. Though many architectural designs pay cosmetic lip service to this landscape, few achieve profound agreement with the environment. Fortunately, Tucson architect Rick Joy came to the commission for the 2,800-square-foot Palmer/ Rose House in the Tucson suburbs with an unusual track record as a Modernist who designs with an elemental palette of light, space, and soil.

Perhaps Joy's interest in the basics started during his years as a carpenter in Maine in the 1970s and 1980s, but the Southwest (he attended architecture school at the University of Arizona) exposed him to the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde and the undecorated, clean-lined vernacular of the desert. In the Southwest, adobe and rammed- earth structures belong to living traditions deeply rooted in local and regional history. Joy's explorations in Arizona were not stylistic so much as tectonic, based on the nature of the materials he found and cultivated. In 1996, he investigated the possibilities of rammed earth in the Convent Avenue Studios, packing earth in walls that revealed the streaming strata of pours, creating surfaces that look like cuts through geological time. As a contemporary Modernist, he expressed the nature of materials, but he also put the mass back into the volumes that the original Modernists had removed some eight decades before. The architect is a pragmatist and not a theorist - or rather, he bases his theory on pragmatics, developing his esthetics and approach to construction through a sensitive use of materials. He gravitates towards rammed earth "because I can do it with less of a focus on fine craftsmanship," he explains. "It allows me to build a large part of the building without skilled labor, and then I can pull more skilled labor in target areas, and create a contrast with the shell."

The new house is located several miles from the Santa Catalina mountain range, which virtually magnetizes the four-acre site and sets the house's orientation. A sense of raw land permeates the site; Tucson, where residents have pioneered indigenous landscaping, has not succumbed to irrigated lawns and imported botanical specimens like Phoenix has, so the suburban yards have escaped domestication.

The program for the one-bedroom house called for a study and a loft like living space to include an open kitchen and dining area, with an adjacent outdoor space equivalent to an exterior room. A secondary prep kitchen would serve as a back-up for the open kitchen. Joy divided the program into three architectural segments - a bedroom wing, living area, and a 1,500-square-foot combined garage, workshop, and guest apartment - and deployed them like a wagon train that rings a front entrance area. The rammed-earth facades of the west and middle segments, which house the bedroom wing and living area, respectively, act as the house's privacy shield. The massive walls support corrugated steel butterfly roofs with inverted gables, which drain to cantilevered steel scuppers that shoot rainwater beyond the building line. The rusty V-shaped roofs recall the profile of the surrounding mountains, and the entire mass lies low in the landscape. "We found that if we hunkered down the house, the mountains would seem higher," explains Joy.

The large living area, located immediately beyond the entrance, delivers visitors to the striking mountain panorama via a wide north- facing wall of floor-to-ceiling structural glass. The valley of the butterfly roof compresses the space on the low south side and releases it to the view on the high north face. The all-in-one room, which contains a long kitchen island that doubles as a buffet for entertaining, opens at the far east flank onto a covered outdoor room walled with rammed earth; at the west end, the earthen wall is carved with large square niches and the mouth of a fireplace. The study, master bedroom, and bathroom lie beyond this wall to the west, and the bedroom, which features another north-facing structural glass wall and smaller punched windows, assumes the posture of a cave, protected at the rear and open at the front.

Joy bridges openings with flat plates of steel instead of wood, making the forms geometrically crisp rather than thematically sentimental. The architect, who studied fine arts at the Portland School of Art in Maine before attending architecture school, juxtaposes the disciplined geometry with the streams of sediment poured into the molds. Many walls are battered, giving the apparently simple volumes a subtle angular complexity. "The basic shell of the building is rough, and within that shell we insert more refined elements, as though they're in a ruin," maintains Joy. The dynamically sloped ceilings are surfaced in Douglas fir planks, and cabinets, paneling, and doors are crafted in cherry. With drywall banished to the closets, the dominantly natural palette provides a built-in esthetic and a tonal continuity that minimizes color contrast. The architect takes full advantage of the walls' thermal properties, and keeps them closed to the south while opening them to the north.

As his own contractor, Joy exercises tight controls over the construction process, isolating the tasks in separate drawings for subcontractors. Architecture students and recent graduates often work on his crews. This working model not only enables Joy to control the quality of building craft, but also keeps building costs down.

Joy's design derives strength largely from the bold, sharply defined masses, and from the expression of the visual and tectonic character of rammed earth. But the architect's use of the material also raises questions. The massive walls imply that they are supporting something substantial, but Joy uses the corrugated metal roof - a traditional architectural motif in the Southwest - as thin planes rather than as volumes. He may have put mass back into the house's cubic volume, but by transforming the gable roofs often built atop local adobes into a butterfly, he subverts and deflates the volume, making it appear too light for the heft of the wall. The building's thick walls and glass facades also mask the fact that buried in parts of the earthen structure is a steel armature: Pipe columns support the steel beams necessary for the long spans. While emphatic about the proper detailing and expression of rammed earth, unfortunately, Joy's honest expression of materials refrains from giving the building's secondary structure convincing visibility.

Joy insists that he's a Modern architect, but his Modernism, so reductive in its simplicity, is the kind that makes a strong connection with the primitive. Charles and Ray Eames furnished their famous off-the-shelf steel house with vernacular toys and utensils, emphasizing that their home and the anonymous objects shared an economy of means and a directness of expression. The timelessness of the Palmer/Rose House resides in the fact that it is simultaneously contemporary and ancient.

Many Arizonans have built with rammed earth, but what distinguishes Joy's work in the same material is the rigor and vision of its application. Suburbs may occupy that middle ground between the city and nature, but Joy's use of rammed earth sites his design in a provocative middle ground between culture and nature - between the art of fabrication and raw matter. This is a design with an intelligence that does not separate the house from the land.

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Architecture of New York City

New York is a city of aspiration and history. The soaring buildings and skyscrapers, the great bridges which rise like cathedrals to a vaulting ambition. This section of the course will review the architectural wonders of one of America's greatest cities.

Lower Manhattan is the seat of municipal government, moving north into the former manufacturing district of SoHo, you will find cast iron buildings that have been converted into restaurants, art galleries and various kinds of shops. Moving north even farther is midtown Manhattan with breathtaking scenes of architectural wonders at every view.

The Brooklyn Bridge, completed in 1883, it was the world's longest suspension bridge and the first to be built of steel. This was inspired by German immigrant John Roebling. It was intended to be as much a national monument as a connection between Brooklyn and Manhattan. There are 14,000 miles of steel wire woven into the cables of the bridge. The Gothic-style granite towers (or caissons) took 5 years to complete and were sunk almost 100 feet below the river bed.

The Chrysler Building was designed by William Van Alen as Walter Chrysler's monument to the automobile. Ornamentation includes: eagle gargoyles resembling hood ornaments and chrome-studded hubcaps set into brickwork frieze of stylized racing cars. Concentric arches of exposed stainless steel accentuate the building's unconventional triangular windows. In 1981, spectacular lighting was installed, giving this landmark structure one of the most distinctive profiles in the nocturnal New York skyline.

Times Square also part of the midtown scene is actually in the shape of a triangle. Located at the convergence of Seventh Avenue and Broadway, it is considered the heart of the theater district. At one time, Times Square was known as Longacre Square - it was renamed when the New York Times moved to 43^rd Street. Substantial art deco master pieces are found throughout the area.

In Midtown Manhattan, renowned architects John Burgee and Philip Johnson designed the Lipstick Building (informal name) along with the Citicorp Building. They are streamlined elliptical contours of tapered glass and pink stone which are the hallmarks of these unique structures. In many skyscrapers, glass panes are equipped with sensors that monitor and adjust temperature as well as the amount of sunlight entering the building.

All skyscrapers must be flexible enough to withstand the stress that winds and even earth quakes can produce. Though tall buildings normally experience many kinds of movement (among them drift, sway, and twist), the top of a 1,000 foot tower should not sway more than 2 and a � feet. One back and forth motion (or oscillation) can take as much as 10 seconds.

The Central Park West Historic District stretches south along West 99^th to West 62^nd Streets. Development, which began in the late 1800's resulted in a mosaic of distinctive buildings constructed in neo-Renaissance, Queen Anne and Romanesque revival styles.

The neighborhood declined during the Great Depression but in the 1960's the newly built Lincoln Center attracted a number of artists, performers and affluent people who restored the area. Terra cottam brick, wrought-iron, stained glass and copper are "favorites" in this district. At the turn of the century, talented immigrant stone cutters decorated the Upper West Side brownstones with spirits and creatures made of sandstone, granite and marble.

Thomas Lamb, known for his extravagant movie palaces, designed the Pythian Temple, which was built in 1927 as a Masonic Grand Lodge. The use of sphinx vulture and pharoah images on the temple's polychromate panels reflects an interest (at the time) of Egypt which was fostered by the discovery of Tutankhamen's tomb [in 1922]. Also on the West Side is Congregation B'nai Jeshurun, New York's oldest Ashkenazic synagogue. The architectural details that stands out with this synagogue is it Moorish and Roman style decorated columns.

In Northern Manhattan, there is the George Washington Bridgem completed by Engineer Othmar H. Ammann (in 1931). This was one of the most daring projects of the day. It spans 3,500 feet across the Hudson River, doubling the record for suspension bridges. The 604 foot raw steel towers conatin 17 story arches through which 50 million cars pass annually from Manhattan to New Jersey.

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Buffalo, New York Architecture

Buffalo became one of America's greatest cities in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries. A significant amount of enormous wealth was generated here and was also invested in architecture - some of the best that could be obtained in the United States.

There are outstanding buildings designed by America's greatest architects including: Louis Sullivan, Henry Hobson Richardson, Stanford White, Richard Upjohn and Frank Lloyd Wright.

This remarkable architectural heritage came about as an integral part of Buffalo's growth to one of the nation's most important inland ports and manufacturing centers. It became the western terminus of the Erie Canal (in 1825). Buffalo was a transfer point for raw materials and manufactured products.

This section will review some of the significant architectural pieces of New York's Queen city.

The Liberty Building was designed by NY skyscraper architect Alfred Bossom in 1925. He was known to top his tall buildings with romantic symbols. This 23 story structure (originally known as the Liberty Bank Building) has two thirty-foot bronze replicas of the Statue of Liberty. One faces east and the other west. To Bossom, this represented Buffalo's strategic position in the United States. Buffalo was the western outpost of the East and the East's gateway to the west.

The Niagara Mohawk Building was originally called General Electric Tower and was designed by the prominent architectural firm of Esenwein & Johnson (inspired by the Electric Tower at the Pan-American Exposition in 1901). This slender octangonal 294 foot high skyscraper is sheathed in white glazed terra cotta that makes it gleam after every rainfall.

Buffalo Savings Bank possess a brilliantly gilded ceramic tile dome with a 15 foot high finial coated in gold leaf. The building was designed by E. B. Green and William S. Wicks and was inspired by the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago.

Statler Towers is comprised of three 19-story brick and stone towers joined at the bottom by a red brick & stone base. Previously on the site was U.S. President Millard Fillmore's mansion, which was demolished to make way for Ellsworth Statler's grandest hotel in the United States. The building was designed by New York architects George B. Post & Sons, in English Renaissance Revival style.

Along the upper 400 block of Delaware Avenue, the Midway, is comprised of neoclassical row houses that extend for one long city block. Row houses, while quite common in east coast cities, were rare in the wide open spaces of the western NY City of Buffalo. With ample land available (and being inexpensive) - the wealthy tended to prefer mansions on large tracts of land.

As the turn of the century approached and urban land prices went up in a booming city, a plan emerged to build a row of grand townhouses that would be appealing to those wealthy people who cared less about maintaining huge gardens and large lots. The block was called Midway because it was halfway between Niagara Square and Forest Lawn Cemetery.

QUESTIONS

1. In your reading above, we note that something has a VITAL hand in shaping a building's ultimate form - what is that something?
2. What was a major factor that attributed to the success of early builders as noted in the reading above?
3. The term "stress calculations" is noted above, what does that have to do with? (Be very specific)
4. What did the reading above indicate as one of the major reasons for the numerous "architectural mishaps" that once occurred?
5. What does the "PPI" rule stand for and what does it mean? 6. How many bridges collapsed in the late 1800's (annually) which indicated a need for more than "intuition" in the building and architectural trades?

7. With regard to the PPI rule above, what's bad about it from an economical standpoint - please describe in your own words.
8. In your reading above, it was noted that "in general, "X" overtakes strength? - what word should replace the "X" and explain in your own words.
9. From your reading above, describe carefully the difference between "liveload and deadload".
10. In your reading above, there are duration periods for "shorter loads" - in other words, the allowable stress can be increased. Explain all the exceptions with percentages as noted above.
11. There was discussion above about "springiness", describe what this has to do with and it's importance in real estate & architecture.
12. There was discussion above having to do with things being "elastic", describe the importance of this in architecture and describe what the example of the "load on a stone being 2 tons with the stone's reaction".
13. In your reading above, why are foundations made wider than walls?
14. It was discussed that a masonry wall is stronger if the horizontal courses of stones (or bricks) are what? (explain why)
15. Compressive stress was discussed at length above, based on your reading, what is the "ultimate danger" - with walls that causes buckling - give an example from the reading above.
16. From the reading above, describe the concept "dynamically unstable".
17. Above we noted the phrase: "a vertically loaded wall is all nicely in compression" - what does this mean in english?
18. Horizontal winds was described above, explain the threats from these winds and how stronger winds can impact & affect the architectures integrity.
19. There was discussion about how a tower wall is stepped, explain why this is the case.
20. In the discussion of columns, explain why columns cannot be built as high as walls of the same thickness.
21. With regards to "beams" (as noted above), what does the principle of "crow-bar" mean?
22. Where does a beam work hardest?
23. Summarize in your own words, the distinction between stiffness and strength as noted above.
24. Traffic flow was described above under the context of "Modern Architectural Considerations", please summarize the important facts as they pertain to: A)entrances; B)interior traffic flow; C)the 4 kinds of general "areas" within a home [and which rooms should be near which].
25. There was quite a bit of discussion about "hallways". Summarize the important facts.
26. Discuss the "kitchen triangle" concept and it's importance in residential architecture & design.
27. Which kitchen design shape is MOST ideal and which is NOT -explain.
28. What is important about "stairways" as discussed above.
29. With regard to "sun advantages" as noted in your reading, describe the location of rooms to maximize (or minimize) sun exposure and how it differs for homes in NORTHERN climates to SOUTHERN climates.
30. In your own words, discuss the important concepts of "fireproofing" as noted in the text above.
31. What is the reason that lumber is actually somewhat smaller in size then the quoted sizes such as 2 x 4?
32. What is the importance of knowing the different qualities a log yields (and the need for categorization)?
33. What are the 2 ways of grading structural lumber?
34. Explain the various categories for the following types of lumber: A) beams & stringers and B) posts & timbers [your answers should just describe the size differences and minimums].
35. Explain in summary form, the importance of "moisture content" in wood used for construction.
36. Name the advantages & disadvantages of steel construction.
37. In the section that discussed "architectural character", what was noted about the importance of the "exterior" of a property? [Be VERY specific]
38. Summarize in your own words, the importance of maintaining a home's interior integrity as discussed at length above.
39. Name 3 interesting facts about the Brooklyn Bridge as noted above.
40. Name one architectural fact about the Chrysler Building as noted above.
41. There was a thorough discussion about the stress of winds on skyscrappers - summarize the important facts as noted above.
42. Name three great architects that worked in Buffalo during the nineteenth and early 20th century.
43. Name two significant architectural wonders about the City of Buffalo as noted above (include some specific detail about each).

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